Desire featured in Variety

It has been months since I last wrote a blog post. Almost a year actually. I had planned on being way more active on this blog but the constant flow of work on my new films Desire and Scars We Carry never let up and months quickly passed by. Since I last wrote a post, I managed to complete the post-production of Scars We Carry and we just wrapped up the production of Desire, my upcoming film on Detroit techno pioneer Carl Craig. I am really happy to share that Variety ran a story on Desire this week. We are now moving on to sound editing, sound mixing and color grading. The film will be ready in a couple of months. And then another adventure will start.

This picture with Carl Craig was taken on the last day of our last shoot in Detroit. We ended up in front of the iconic Michigan Central building, that is one of the symbols of Detroit’s renaissance today. In the past two years, we spent a lot of time trying to capture all the facets of Carl’s beloved Detroit that you can hear in his music: the melancholy, the economic and racial struggles, the resilience, the solidarity, the creativity and the joy. I hope you will be to see, feel and hear all this in Desire.

I am happy to share a few pictures from the shoot. The backstage pictures were taken by the talented Mathilda Schaffter, one of my former students at the Ecole Supérieure du Journalisme (ESJ) in Paris.

This past year, I have also had the privilege to teach the remote master program in documentary filmmaking at the ESJ. My students have produced 17 documentary short films last year, an impressive achievement. I am just amazed by their creativity, resilience and perseverance. And my work with students has become a constant source of inspiration to me.

The journey of making my new documentary Rhythms of Tomorrow

Shoot at Mirko Loko’s studio in Lausanne, Switzerland. ©Mathilda Schaffter

Three continents in three weeks. When you make a film on Detroit techno legend Carl Craig, you have to be able to follow his pace. These past few weeks have been full of contrasts and incredible scenes and encounters. Imagine. On a Saturday afternoon of early April, you are at the top of a mountain in Chamonix filming Carl Craig with the Mont Blanc as a backdrop. Three days later, you meet with him again at MOCA in Los Angeles. And in between, you witnessed and filmed a fantastic set by Laurent Garnier at the Unlimited Festival in Chamonix, where Carl Craig and Mirko Loko also performed. And you finish up your journey around half of the world at the southernmost tip of Chile for a shoot for MAN Energy about the fuel of the future. And while you are doing all that, you are trying to organize the post-production for your current film Scars We Carry, that will come out in festivals later on this year.

Interview with Mirko Loko at Le Bourg. ©Mathilda Schaffter.

This has been my life in the past 3 weeks. But let’s start with the beginning. The first leg of this odyssey took place in Lausanne, the town I grew up in and where surprisingly I had never shot a film before. We shot several scenes for Rhythms of Tomorrow, the film I am making on Carl Craig. We shot with Mirko Loko, a deejay and producer I have admired since his early days at the Swiss radio station Couleur 3. Mirko was key in the making of the film on Carl and will play an important role in the documentary as well. So we shot with him at his studio and at Le Bourg Club in Lausanne. The stunning pictures you can discover with this post were taken by Mathilda Schaffter, a student in the master program in documentary filmmaking I am teaching at the Ecole Supérieure du Journalisme in Paris. She joined us for several days on the shoot and captured its essence.

Mirko Loko and Olivier Freymond looking at flyers from the Loft Club. ©Mathilda Schaffter.

We went with Mirko to a small village outside Lausanne where the posters and flyers of the defunct Loft Club are stored. The famous techno club where Carl Craig was a resident in Lausanne shut its doors a little more than 10 years ago and is now a shoe store. Interestingly enough, the club where I spent countless nights as a teen and young adult listening to Detroit techno, disappeared almost without a trace. While shooting in the tiny village I had never been to when I used to live in Switzerland, I discovered that Switzerland has fondue vending machines in places that do not even have a grocery store.

Carl Craig in Chamonix. ©Jean-Cosme Delaloye

After Lausanne, we went to shoot at the Unlimited Festival in Chamonix. The shoot was simply incredible. First, it is one of the coolest festivals I have ever been to. I discovered wonderful artists such as Klement Bonelli and Clara. Filming Carl on top of the mountain, so far away from Detroit was undoubtedly a highlight. If you add to that an interview with the one and only Laurent Garnier as well as a shoot of his incredible set on a mountain, you can start to see see why this shoot was so special. When I studied in the UK, I used to go to the clubs Laurent was spinning at. And when I moved to the U.S., my wife bought me his book Electrochoc, which became my “Bible”. Laurent also did something really special for the film during his set at Unlimited.

Laurent Garnier spinning at Unlimited Festival in Chamonix. ©Jean-Cosme Delaloye

I left Chamonix exhausted but happy and excited for the next stop of the journey. Los Angeles, yes the City of Angels in which I hope to live one day. We went to LA because Carl Craig was inaugurating his Party/After-Party at MOCA, the famous Museum of Contemporary Art in LA. One day, I will write about everything I learned and discovered while following Carl around the world. I will just say for now that Carl is a unique artist and human being whose sound can take you on a journey deep into a universe you did not even know existed within you.

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Carl Craig inside his Party/After-Party installation. ©Dan Wechsler

Carl’s music and his Party/After-Party installation at MOCA are a wonderful and intriguing sensorial experience. And what a sight it was to film Mirko Loko spinning Carl’s tracks during the after-party of the gala celebrating Detroit artist at MOCA.

Interview with Carl Craig at MOCA. ©Dan Wechsler.

We shot really cool scenes at two of LA’s iconic record stores, Rubycon Records and Stellar Remnant and we got the privilege to shoot inside Kenny Larkin’s studio. Kenny Larkin is another deejay I loved dancing to while growing up in Switzerland. We also had the chance to shoot with Silent Servant, one of my favorite deejays out of LA.

Kenny Larkin in his studio in LA. ©Jean-Cosme Delaloye

After two weeks on the road with Carl, I caught a plane to Chile. And after a 36-hour journey, I arrived in Punta Arenas at southernmost tip of Chile. The shoot there was for MAN Energy, which is part of a pilot project to produce emethanol from wind and hydrogen.

Punta Arenas. ©Agustin Barrigo

When growing up, I dreamt of crossing Chile from the north to south one day. I never got to do it, but at least I could see Punta Arenas. And experiencing the end of the world is well worth it. Everything is special in Punta Arenas, the landscape, the light, the mood. And I did something there I would never have expected doing after shooting in techno clubs for the past few months: I attended a karaoke night in a Punta Arenas bar. I will leave you with that image of men and women sitting at tables, often alone, drinking pints of beer, and suddenly coming alive when it was their turn to sing. The power of music, this is what these past 3 weeks have been about for me.

Karaoke night in Punta Arenas with Claudia Lucero. ©Jean-Cosme Delaloye